A very rare event in the skies happened on Monday evening, as planets Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction near the moon. The image could easily be resembled with the one of an emoticon. The gap between the two planets was of approximately 2 degrees, which is the space taken by four full moons.

Another event happened in the same night: the moon covered planet Venus for over an hour, a phenomenon that’s called lunar occultation.

The best places to see the conjunction as a smiley face was Australia, but in Europe and the US, the formation appeared as smiling down. Anyway, it was hard to miss because Venus, Jupiter and the moon are the three most visible heavenly bodies, after the Sun. Venus is particularly bright, as it is the nearest planet to the Earth, and Jupiter, because is the biggest in our Solar System.

Even these kinds of events happen quite often, many of them are not visible to the naked eye because of the light from the Sun. The fact that the moon was in its crescent phase made these two events to be so special, as they could have easily been seen with binoculars or even with the naked eye.

Astronomers guess that a similar conjunction between Jupiter and Venus happened in the year 2 BC. They think the two planets must have been so close together, leading people to believe there was only one star, naming it the Star of Bethlehem.

The next visible conjunction of Venus and Jupiter will be on March 14, 2012, but it will be less spectacular, as they will be farther away from each other.